Books and Documents

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Hazrat Inayat Khan

The soul in Sanskrit, in the terms of the Vedanta, is called Atman which means happiness or bliss itself. It is not that happiness belongs to the soul; it is that the soul itself is happiness. Today we often confuse happiness with pleasure; but pleasure is only an illusion, a shadow of happiness; and in this delusion man may pass his whole life, seeking after pleasure and never finding satisfaction. There is a Hindu saying that man looks for pleasure and finds pain.…..

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Hazrat Inayat Khan

The word 'soul' is used by different people in different senses. But the manner of its connection with the body proves it to be divine. Therefore, the Sufi conception of the soul is that it is the divine part in man. The fire that comes from coal or wood is in reality the part of the sun that is in them. When the soul qualities arise in the heart of a man and show themselves, this proves that it is the divine part in him that rises, like the flame in the fire. Soul is in all objects, both things and beings.....

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch

Sentences in terrorism and terrorism-related cases vary considerably. In the 494 terrorism and terrorism-related prosecutions we reviewed based on Department of Justice data, defendants who went to trial received a median sentence of 11.3 years, while those who took plea agreements received a median sentence of 3.2 years. More than one-third of those who took a plea deal received either no prison sentence or a sentence of time served. [546] However, 91 defendants received sentences of 15 years or more, including 19 life sentences...

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Hazrat Inayat Khan

There is a saying that words are valuable but silence is more precious. This saying will always prove true. The more we understand the meaning of it, the more we realize its truth. How many times we find during the day that we have said something, which would have been better left unsaid! How many times we disturb the peace of our surroundings, without meaning it, by lack of silence….

Henry Siegman

Both conservatives and liberals, including David Brooks of The New York Times and Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic, have criticized the movie and its director, as well as Tony Kushner, co-author of the screenplay, for failing to distinguish between terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad that deliberately target innocents, and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), whose retaliatory strikes—even when they cause “collateral damage” and kill civilians—target only terrorists......

Jawed Naqvi

I was looking for material to explain Sania Mirza’s trauma with Hindutva’s ultra-nationalists when I remembered that Dilip Kumar had undergone similar experiences, of being called a Pakistan sympathiser, even a Pakistani agent. It is another matter that Muslim zealots in both countries have targeted India’s most emulated movie icon for adopting a Hindu screen name instead of sticking to Yousuf Khan, which came with his Peshawari Muslim identity….

Human Rights Watch

The law empowers prosecutors to prosecute conduct that might seem otherwise innocuous— translating books and publishing them online, or storing ponchos and socks, as described in two cases below—for the ostensible purpose of preventing terrorism. While US courts have interpreted this law as criminalizing conduct only—and not as infringing on freedom of association—many scholars disagree. David Cole, a law professor who also served as counsel for plaintiffs in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, has written, “what good is it to have a right to join or associate with a group if the government can make it a crime to do anything whatsoever on the group’s behalf?”[....

Pervez Hoodbhoy

Josh Malihabadi

Those steeped in the high culture of Urdu poetry do not really care. They know well the power and exhilarating beauty of Josh’s literary creations. His dexterity and genius in transposing thoughts into words created new thoughts and expressions. Poetry flowed from his pen like water from a bubbling spring – he is said to have authored well over 100,000 A’shaar (couplets) and more than one thousand Rubaiyyats. Some among them represent the finest that Urdu poetry has to offer. This puts him into the pantheon of Urdu poets alongside giants like Ghalib and Iqbal......

Human Rights Watch

In some cases we examined, a government agent appears to have taken on the role of a religious authority figure for a target who was searching for guidance about Islam because he was young, a recent convert, or socially outside the mainstream Muslim community due to race or ethnicity. These cases are particularly troubling to many in American Muslim communities, where members feel law enforcement is exploiting the very paranoia described in detail in section VII. In some cases, the FBI employed versions of Islam when interacting with the target that led targets towards specific mindsets and actions.....

Gaza Carnage Resources

We have been asked by our academic colleagues in Gaza – whose universities have been destroyed a number of times in the last six years, who are unable to teach or study, and who are also in growing need of food and medicines, like the rest of the almost two million Palestinians living in Gaza – to urge you to act urgently, to make your voice heard in Israel and abroad against what the Israeli government is inflicting on the Gaza population. More than 650 people have been killed already in Gaza by the IDF since the start of the Israeli operation on July 8th, 2014, and the number will be bigger by the time you read this message......

Gwynne Dyer

Gwynne Dyer

Some 59 skeletons were found in 1964, lying together in a gravesite beside the Nile Rıver, near what is now the Egyptian-Sudanese border. They died between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago, and some of them seemed to have died in battle. That was big news half a century ago, when most people still believed organized killing was an invention of civilization. Now they are back in the news, billed as evidence of the world’s oldest-known battle……

Jason Burke

When he fled to London to avoid angry members of his former gang, he ended up in central London’s Regent’s Park mosque; then he was offered a Saudi-funded scholarship to study Arabic and his new faith at an ultra-conservative religious school in Yemen. He accepted and this first trip to the Middle East marked the real start of his extraordinary journey through 15 years of extremism in Britain, Denmark and Yemen…..

Chandramauli Kr. Prasad

The stand of
the Union of India is that Fatwas are advisory in nature and no Muslim is bound
to follow those. Further, Dar-ul-Quaza does not administer criminal justice and
it really functions as an arbitrator, mediator, negotiator or conciliator in
matters pertaining to family dispute or any other dispute of civil nature
between the Muslims. According to the Union of India, Dar-ul-Quaza can be
perceived as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism, which strives to
settle disputes outside the courts expeditiously in an amicable and inexpensive
manner and, in fact, have no power or authority to enforce its orders and,
hence, it cannot be termed as either in conflict with or parallel to the Indian
Judicial System. The Union of India has not denied that Fatwas as alleged by
the petitioner were not issued but its plea is that they were not issued by any
of the Dar-ul- Quaza. In any event, according to the Union of India, few bad
examples may not justify abolition of system, which otherwise is found useful
and effective……

No Credit

The magazine carries pictures of crowds cheering IS militants as they parade through Syrian and Iraqi towns with the black flag, graphic photos apparently of Sunni civilians slain by the “Rafidhi,” a derogatory term for Shias, and of Shia soldiers “heroically” killed by the Mujahideen. Dabiq also features a long and complex theological article essentially justifying the caliphate and Baghdadi’s position as both religious and political leader.....

Roshan Shah

Desiderio Pinto’s essay covers a wide historical canvas, focusing particularly on noted Indian Muslim figures who promoted interaction with, and understanding of, people of other faiths. These include early Arab and Persian scholars who translated Buddhist and Hindu texts into Arabic and Persian, and several Sufis who unhesitatingly adopted certain ‘Buddhist’ and ’Hindu’ practices, not seeing this as in any way contradicting Islam.....

Teresa Joseph

Hazrat Inayat Khan was a man with a mission to bridge the gap between East and West and between people who claimed to follow different religions. This he sought to do through the message of mysticism that transcends humanly-constructed barriers of communal, ethnic and national differences. He was the one called to bring Sufi wisdom to the West, as was made clear by his Murshid or guru, Hazrat Abu Hashim Madani. Hazrat Inayat Khan described Sufism as “a mother of the coming reform in the religious world.”.....

Hafeez Naumani

Hafeez Naumani

As is obvious from his autobiographical account the policy of harassment, intimidation, humiliation and implication of Muslims (specially the youth) in fabricated and baseless cases has been in place since 1947 and continues to be followed till today no matter which government is in power......

Raza Wazir

In recent years the Pashtun regions have been defined by the complicated counterinsurgency campaigns more than 300,000 NATO and Pakistani troops have been waging in Afghanistan and Pakistan. With the imminent withdrawal of most Western combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, the Pakistani army is in the midst of what it calls a “comprehensive operation” in North Waziristan. These complicated struggles require a new understanding of what afflicts the Pashtun homeland in Afghanistan and Pakistan….

Wael Hallaq

Wael Hallaq

The proposition that a modern Islamic state is impossible and evens a contradiction in terms contains at least two hidden questions that must be stated at the outset. First, if this state is inconceivable, then, one might ask, how did Muslims, having in the past commanded a great civilization and built many empires, rule themselves? What form of governance did they practice? And second, with this impossibility in mind, what type of political rule are Muslims presently adopting or likely to adopt in the future?....

Roshan Shah

Imagine a team of Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims and Christians from different lands closely collaborating with each other on a joint project for global goodness? Difficult, or even almost impossible, isn’t it? But this is something that actually happened, believe it or not, around a thousand years ago, leading to the production of a remarkable work of great spiritual and literary merit: The Animals’ Lawsuit against Humanity.....

Yasser Latif Hamdani

Yasser Latif Hamdani

Nehru and Patel, more rightly than wrongly, were the architects of partition, not Jinnah. Maulana Azad’s book, India Wins Freedom, seconds that. Indeed, he says so very clearly that it was Patel and company who were the flag-bearers of partition and not Jinnah. He calls Nehru’s decision to torpedo the Cabinet Mission Plan a Himalayan blunder……

Sudhish Kamath

Sudhish Kamath

As the film cuts between their lives (Ruhi's tense training days in the run-up to the finale of the beauty pageant and Prachi's training days at the Durga Vahini camp), we first see how different they are and yet slowly see that their lives are not all that different after all. They are both chasing dreams that actually live out fantasies of men and that too defined in a system, by the rules laid down by men.......

Edited and Prepared By Pandit Satyakam Vidyalankar

The divine light of cosmic intelligence, which has golden radiance and a sweet voice, descends from heaven to inspire us thrice at our assemblies. Mayest Thou accept, O Lord of Divine Light, the praises recited by the eulogers and thereupon fulfil all our aspirations. (Rig.3.54.11) …….